Outstanding inventor, self-taught mechanic Ivan Kulibin and his masterpieces | Photo: top-antropos.com, violity.ua and pro-travel.net21 APR marks 282 years since the birth of the outstanding Russian mechanic and inventor Ivan Kulibin. His name became a household word, but most use it in an ironic context: «Too to me the difference!» – when someone comes up with something interesting, but useless. With this attitude, Kulibin had to put up with in life. The Academy of Sciences his invention was ridiculed, even though they were no less revolutionary than the opening of Leonardo da Vinci. But the eccentric self-educated, loved women, and the Empress was favorable to him.Spotlight Kulibina | Photo: neizvestniy-geniy.Hakulinen was born in 1735 in the family of a merchant-old believer and all his life adhered to the old traditions: never played cards, never smoked tobacco, drank alcohol, wore a beard. Even when Catherine II invited him to shave his beard in exchange for the receipt of the nobility, he chose to stay in the merchant class. However, the Empress tolerant to oddities Kulibina – he was the author of such number of revolutionary for that time of the inventions that had the right to their eccentricities.Clock Kulibin created for the Empress | Photo: violity.iafelice inventor was self-taught: he never went to school and learned the mechanics on their own. In his room were assembled all available at that time, adaptations for turning, metalwork and other works. A friend of his father, the merchant Kostromin, noticed his talent and encouraged him to make an unusual clock to present them to the Empress. Clock Kulibin created for the Empress | Photo: portal-kultura.ru and holisticauction.Hakulinen coped with the task: despite the fact that the work for some time stopped – he was fascinated by the creation of a microscope watch is really unusual. They were made in the form of duck eggs, in which each hour opened the little door, and behind them was seen the empty Tomb, and the guards guarding him. In hours also had a jukebox with some tunes. Catherine appreciated the gift and the talent of the inventor Kulibin soon appointed head of the mechanical workshop of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.Project one-arch bridge over the Neva river | Photo: top-antropos.sommereben led workshops of the Academy of Sciences for 30 years, offering a considerable number of inventions: a 300-meter arch bridge across the Neva, screw lift, spotlight, mechanical prosthetic leg, river self-propelled vessel with vozdeistvuya engine that could sail against the current, optical Telegraph, mechanic carriage with a pedal etc.Vodorodnoe the ship Kulibina | Photo: smartnews.ru and pro-travel.netК unfortunately, most of his inventions remained projects. None of the bridges Kulibina was not built, despite the successful test of a reduced model of arch bridge. Built for the Empress lift – «lift chair» moving in a special shaft with a screw mechanism – after the death of Catherine are not used, and the mine laid the bricks. Model *samobegloy kolyaski* Kulibina | Photo: aif.guisubmenu Kulibina not in a hurry to introduce as pundits treated them with suspicion and even irony. The self-taught without any engineering education, none of them was not taken seriously, he was considered an eccentric and inventor. The bridge project raised a laugh: say, the ignoramus does not know the basic things and offers a structure which will collapse immediately. The Director of the Academy of Sciences Ekaterina Dashkova somehow disliked the inventor. Kulibin wrote student Ivan Petrikovo: «I Work a lot and hard, but my situation is among the proud academicians far from pleasant, and the only power I drown the sorrow that they cause me with their incessant ridicule and contemptuous treatment of me, the poor self-taught». Model *samobegloy kolyaski* Kulibina | Photo: labirint.will gigaport, the great inventor was very loving and enjoyed great success with women. No eccentricities Kulibina, nor his conservatism at home and the habits not to scare away the ladies. He was usually cheerful, loved to attend parties, where I was a Joker, witty answered any ridicule, he knew how to win. Besides Kulibin wrote poetry and looked very unusual: always in a long coat, high boots, with a full beard, he seemed like the fair sex extravagant and mysterious, which further attracted them.Spotlight Kulibina | Photo: labirint.Hakulinen was married three times, and the third time he married in 70 years. He had 12 children, three of whom appeared in the third marriage, when the inventor was 70. All the boys he gave a good education, and they have become mining engineers.The monument of Ivan Kulibin in Nizhny Novgorod | Photos: top-antropos.song history there were many cases when the opening was assessed only after the death of their authors. The secrets of the ingenious inventions of the past are unraveling to this day.